The other day I was listening to a podcast I downloaded from a website called Entrepreneurs-Journey. It’s run by a guy named Yaro Starak and has great information on running an internet business. In this particular podcast, Yaro mentioned the phrase “Open Source Movement” while talking about a program he uses to edit audio files for his podcasts. (If you’re interested the audio program is Audacity.)

For those that don’t know, open source software is absolutely free software that can be used for individual purposes and commercially.

Anyways, when he said that it got me thinking about the many open source software programs I use, not to mention the thousands that I simply haven’t had time to play around with yet. Open source has expanded to the point where you can perform just about any computer-based function without paying a dime. Of course you’ll need to sacrifice certain features from time to time, but by and large you can adequately get the job done for free.

I put together a small list of some of the open source programs I use and I included a couple bonus links that list some of the better open source software applications that are available. You may have seen some of these programs before, perhaps you’ve used them already, but if you haven’t I suggest you give them a try. You’ll be impressed with how useful they are.

The Ones I Use

FileZilla – this file transfer software lets you easily upload files to your webserver. If you don’t have a website of your own, this one won’t help you much. If you do, it’s a very easy-to-use program and works great with…

Wordpress - this blogging/content management software is among the leaders in open source software. It is extremely functional and is widely regarded as one of the best blogging platforms. This site uses Wordpress with excellent results.

PDFCreator – you can use this software application to easily convert any printable document to a PDF file. Nearly as effective as Adobe Writer and absolutely free.

Simple Machines Forum – a free bulletin board/forum software program that will help you have a high-quality forum up and running in a matter of minutes. I set one up for my buddies and I to talk smack and it went from an idea to a functioning forum in less than ten minutes. A SiteRoast.com forum is also in the works and I used SMF for that as well.

Complete Open Source Software Lists

Mohawke’s Open Source Software Collection – this list includes a couple of the apps listed above along with about 100 others. It’s very diverse and comprehensive. If you’re just browsing for something to play around with, you’ll find some interesting options here.

SourceForge.net – the complete list of open source software. If you don’t find what you’re looking for here, I’d be shocked. Not only will you find what you’re looking for, you might get caught up looking around for other very cool applications.

Wikipedia Open Source Software List – a pretty thorough list of open source software organized by category. A number of different options are available here.

The great thing about open source software is it’s usually very easy to use. Some programs are very, very simple and others require a small learning curve, but once you get the basics down, you’ll see how awesome the open source movement is. If you are especially satisfied, don’t forget to make a small donation to their site.